


When Consequence is Past

by Meilan_Firaga



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-War, Right after the final battle, Shock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:13:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24297169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meilan_Firaga/pseuds/Meilan_Firaga
Summary: In the wake of the battle that finally saw an end to Voldemort, the Malfoy family is adrift in the sea of the mourning survivors on the side of light. They are numb and lost beneath the looming blanket of consequence, and none more so than Draco. Then Luna Lovegood appears beside them with words that are both comfort and confusion.
Relationships: Luna Lovegood/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 4
Kudos: 41
Collections: Villain of My Own Story Exchange 2020





	When Consequence is Past

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sky_King](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sky_King/gifts).



The great hall was abuzz with constant chatter, grief and relief filling the air in equal measure. Friends who'd fought in different areas during the battle wept with joy to find one another alive. Those in mourning clutched people who’d been perfect strangers before they'd stood back to back against Voldemort's army. Surrounded by all of it, huddled together at the end of one of the long tables, the Malfoy family were conspicuously silent. The family patriarch had the haunted, lost look of a man whose entire belief system had turned to ash in his hands the very moment he had everything he'd thought he wanted. Narcissa's usually perfect composure was shattered, her eyes tracking her son's every movement as she clung to his hand for dear life. Draco was the closest to normal out of them all. There were no tear-tracks on his pale face. Though his hair was mussed, it was almost artfully disheveled. His features appeared no more pinched than usual. His eyes, however, were curiously blank.

"I'm glad none of you were killed."

The voice—familiar and strangely serene given the situation— startled the family from their daze. Luna Lovegood stood at the end of the table. There were streaks of dirt and blood on her face, on her clothes, and in her hair. One sleeve of her jumper was ripped at the shoulder, revealing a bloody scrape on the flesh beneath. Her figure was still gaunt, hollow cheeks a sharp reminder that she’d spent quite a lot of time imprisoned in the dungeon beneath their manor. She had more right than most to throw sarcastic barbs at the Malfoys, but her face showed only sincerity.

Lucius was the first to recover from his surprise. "Why?" he croaked. His voice was as rusty as an old iron lock. 

"Why should I feel otherwise?" she tilted her head to one side, genuinely confused by the thought. "Those that died don't have a change to do better. To be better." She smiled a sleepy, slightly dazed kind of smile. "Now you have the opportunity for change."

“Right…” Eyes focused on the younger girl’s vacant expression, Draco carefully disentangled his hand from his mother’s and stood from the bench. “Let’s have a healer take a look at you, Lovegood. I think you may have hit your head.” He tilted his head in the general direction of where the injured were lined up for treatment from the ranks of those who knew a little healing magic. “We’ll stay in sight, mother,” he said quietly over one shoulder before steering the young Ravenclaw across the hall by her elbow.

“I’m quite fine,” Luna assured him as soon as they’d passed out of earshot. “Mrs. Weasley looked me over, but I told her to save her energy for the others instead of bothering with all these scrapes. They’ll heal on their own.”

Draco cleared his throat, but kept his grip on her elbow firm. “Yeah, well, being happy the family that tortured you is alive is loopy even for you so we’re having someone check you again.” Her elbow disappeared from his grip (he must be tired, because she couldn’t possibly be that fast), but just as quickly she looped their arms together.

“Bellatrix Lestrange tortured me. Voldemort tortured me.” She squeezed his own forearm hard to drive her point home as the came to a stop just behind a small crowd of people waiting for the attention of a healer. Her strength was impressive. “You and your parents didn’t.” There was that smile again, a sunny thing that did funny things to his insides. 

He didn’t deserve funny feelings and warm smiles.

“You’re barking.” He tried, but there just wasn’t any bite to his voice. His attempt to wrench his arm free from hers failed as well. In front of them the crowd began the thin, those who’d been seen to shuffling off into the more open parts of the hall.

“You’ve done bad things, Draco,” Lovegood insisted, “but no one has ever actually thought you were as bad as you seem to think you are.” She patted his arm absently, and suddenly they were in front of one of the healers—a portly wizard he didn’t recognize. Before he could open his mouth to explain his worry that Lovegood had hit her head and gone ‘round the bend she’d already started talking. “Hullo. No one’s had a look at Draco yet. He’s not been eating right for a while, and I think he’s mostly upright on virtue of shock alone.”

The longer she spoke the colder Draco began to feel. Embarrassingly, his hands began to shake. Just when he was sure his knees were going to buckle, Luna worked herself beneath his arm and supported him with an arm about his waist. She kept talking while the mediwizard transfigured a blanket from a piece of a cloth napkin and draped it over both of their shoulders, giving everything from her observations of his injuries to commentary on strange creatures he was pretty sure didn’t exist. By the time she steered them both back towards his parents someone had brought a floating tray that Luna could steer with one hand while she kept the other locked firmly across his back. The tray was laden with four steaming mugs of some kind of stew and various restorative draughts. Draco’s skin was still humming from the flurry of diagnostic spells when she settled him back on the bench beside his mother.

Lovegood kept chattering while she parsed out two of the mugs to his parents. Narcissa accepted hers with the grace of good manners, then leaned over to her husband to hiss something that got him to take what he was offered. Draco watched the younger girl as she fussed over his family, his hands wrapping automatically around one of the mugs when she placed it in his hands. 

The four of them ate together to the tune of Luna’s continuing commentary. After a while the shaking in Draco’s hands settled. The tightness in his chest eased just enough that he could breathe normally. The voice in his head that had been so loud for his whole life—the one insisting that he was broken, pathetic, a disappointment—drifted down beneath a hazy fog of acceptance. 

_ You are not what you’ve been made _ , a new voice whispered from somewhere in the fog. The words rolled through his mind like distant thunder, an idea planted and waiting to sprout.  _ Things do not have to be as they have been. _

It might have been minutes or it might have been hours, but eventually Draco realized that he’d been dozing against Lovegood’s shoulder. Blearily, he blinked sleep from his eyes and dragged himself upright. At some point Kingsley Shacklebolt had taken a seat at their little corner of the table. He was deep in discussion with Draco’s parents. By the serious expression on all of their faces Draco was sure they were talking about the horrible things his family had done and what the law might have to say about them. Lucius was nodding gravely, but there was a strength to the set of his shoulders that Draco hadn’t seen in months.

“It will work out alright.” Lovegood’s assurance was clearly meant for him alone, whispered against the shell of his ear as she shifted against his side. She turned her cheek against his shoulder, and for the first time since she’d approached them Draco saw her energy start to wane. With steady hands, he shifted more of the blanket around her. “The storm has passed,” she mumbled. He watched her eyelashes fan out against her cheeks as her eyes slipped closed. “Now we rebuild.”

While Shacklebolt and his parents discussed the family’s fate, Draco Malfoy held a sleeping girl for the first time in his life. His eyes drifted around the hall, taking in the lost, the broken, the dead, and those determined to survive. For years he’d looked across this same hall and had seen nothing but those he considered lesser. Now he saw dozens just as uncertain as himself, none of them knowing where the days to come might lead. It was nice, he realized, to not be alone. He might be penniless by tomorrow. He might have to repeat his last year of school or get a menial job or even face some kind of incarceration for the things he’d said and done, but with all that looming he clung to the new voice bouncing through his mind. It spoke of change and possibility and a hope that he’d never really known before. And if that voice was just a little spacey, a little absent like someone determined to live with their head in the clouds—well, it only served to help him cling to a little idea for some day in the future. 

Maybe, when all the dust had settled and he’d served whatever punishment the brand on his left arm demanded, he’d see if Lovegood would let him take her to dinner.


End file.
